


Holy shit my son needs therapy

by Frog_that_writes



Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Angst!, Hurt No Comfort, Spoilers for TKO Rules, haha i love torturing this innocent child, i don't know what the tag this as, seriously don't read this if you haven't watched it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 07:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19763197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frog_that_writes/pseuds/Frog_that_writes
Summary: Carol notices her son has seemed different lately, and realizes its much worse than she thought.





	Holy shit my son needs therapy

Carol would admit that she sometimes wasn’t the most involved in her son’s life. He was at school for six hours every day, working for another five, and sleeping for eight. This meant that there were five hours of the day where she really interacted with him, and this number was getting smaller and smaller now that instead of working at the Bodega, work was going on secret missions with his own hero team. She had thought it had been a good idea at the time, setting him up a part time job at Eugene’s shop so he could have somewhere to stay and learn about heroing while she was busy with her day job and her undercover Point missions. Now though, she realized it felt like her eleven year old son was already grown up and working as a hero in his own town somewhere. The only consolation was that they still ate dinner together most nights. 

It didn’t matter how little she really saw him anymore though. She knew what was important. He was allergic to peanuts, he religiously reorganized his POW-card collection every Friday, and he was one of the happiest kids she knows.

Well, he used to be at least.

She knew it was ridiculous to expect him to not be at least a little less happy go lucky than he used to be. He had single handedly led a dystopian revolution group that overthrow a corrupt leadership while she was in hiding. And then, instead of going back to normal, he became a big time hero at the age of eleven, with two teenagers only a few years older than himself. She was insanely proud, and even more worried. 

He just seemed so much… dimmer lately.

It was like someone had told him that he needed to do all of his growing up at once. And KO, being KO, had decided to stand up straight and do it. He was always trying to be more mature, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

It just all felt so  _ rushed.  _

She could really pinpoint the exact day that it seemed to become so much noticeable. Before, it was obvious he was trying as hard as he could to be something he wasn’t yet. A grown up with all his powers fully understood and his path to heroship already walked. 

But a few words were all it took for him to remember that he was still learning, and that it was okay to make a few mistakes. Or just to make him remember that it was important to remember his own health. He wasn’t much of a hero if he was too sleepy to fight. 

But, after that day where she came home to find the entire house clean and her son crying, he seemed even worse.

Well, in actuality, it almost seemed like he was back to normal. He was infectiously happy all the time. It became almost rare to not see a smile on his face. 

The problem was, it almost seemed like he was too happy.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want her son to be happy, it was just that her son was eleven years old, and eleven year olds didn’t tend to smile while they stubbed their toe. 

She wasn’t really worried until she had made a half joke at dinner one night, and he had started laughing and crying until he was doubled over struggling to breath. He was smiling when he reemerged, though, and she decided not to say anything that night. The next day, however, she decided to test her theory.

-

“So, peanut, have you and TKO been working on you cool fusion moves any lately?” The false casualty in her voice was well honed over eleven years of motherhood. Across from her, KO’s hand stilled for a moment between shoving forkful of food into his mouth, and his face momentarily darkened.

“No. TKO had to go away for a while,” he said. Suddenly his face brightened again. “But I’ve been working on cool solo moves anyways! Yesterday, I Enid summon a piece of wood, and when Rad picked it up with his ray beam I punched it right into the mouth of this giant dude!”

“Wow! You kids are really coming along,” Carol left it at that for a moment, before addressing her worry again. “But peanut, what’s wrong with TKO?”

“He was… bad.” She could almost see the fight taking place on her son’s face between remaining happy or getting angry at whatever he was remembering. 

“Well, I’m sure if you just talked to him you could work it out! I don’t want you kids staying mad at each other for too long and making things worse.” She gently instructed. 

“No!” For just a moment, the anger seemed to win on KO’s face, before he struggled to go back to being happy. “I mean, we decided it was better if he left the mind for a little bit. He was just making things worse.”

“Well sweetie, I know you know your own mind, but it sounds to me like you just don’t want him around anymore.”

“Well, kinda. But it’s been way better since he left! I’ve been happy all the time now. I never feel angry or sad anymore!” He punctuated this statement with a big bite of chicken, smiling around it as he chewed.

“KO,” she hesitated. “Where did TKO go exactly?” The smile fell off his face.

“Where all the other dark and scary stuff goes,” he explained calmly. “The subconscious.”

Maybe Carol had a bigger problem here than she thought, she realized as he went back to happily gnawing down on his dinner. This one wasn’t going to go away with a couple words. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is rushed but i felt like i needed to write something else for this fandom so  
> man that episode fucked! me! up!  
> i really need someone to sit down with KO and be like,,, you're 11,,,, stop being so self destructive,,,, wtf  
> also i choose to do 11 and not any other 6-11 age because obviously he's a bit more mature and angsty in this than a fucking 6 year old  
> does cartoon network even know how different 6 and 11 year olds are i


End file.
